How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [51]
I have never met anyone who is like me. And you have never met anyone who is like you. But it’s a mathematical certainty that there are several of you out there and several of me. Scarily, that means there are several Piers Morgans as well.
Astrologers such as Mystic Meg will tell you that they’ve known this all along. That the human race in actual fact breaks down into twelve distinct groups that have nothing to do with nature, nurture or DNA. Mrs Meg says the positioning of the stars is why all Pisceans will give themselves a Brazilian this evening and why all Sagittarians will fall down the stairs. Plainly, however, this is nonsense. The Italian actress Claudia Cardinale is an Aries, like me, but I have never been asked for her autograph. And no one has ever exclaimed to me: ‘How can you not be Elton John? You’re so alike.’
Astrology is a hopeless way of subdividing our species. And so is the idea put forward by marketeers. They say that if you have a gigantic flatscreen television and like eating chips you are a C or a D, and if you are Nicholas Soames you are an A. It’s all very Huxleyesque, but I’m afraid it’s also rubbish because I have a massive telly and I eat chips, but I also shoot pheasants in the face and I enjoy driving quad bikes on the road. Perhaps this is why my junk mail invites me to buy tartan zip-up slippers and handmade English shotguns.
Then you have those who split the human race into tribes, saying that there is such a thing as ‘the French’ or ‘the British’. No there isn’t. I have nothing in common with Valerie Singleton and even less with Shannon Matthews’s mum.
So how do we break down the human race into groups? This has occupied the minds of some of the greatest thinkers throughout history. But actually I suspect the answer was found in the middle of the last century by A. A. Milne. Yup. I gave this some serious thought in the bath this morning and I have decided that we are all either Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga, Roo, Wol, Rabbit or Eeyore.
Let us take the example of my colleagues on Top Gear. James May is Wol. He thinks he is very serious and very clever, but actually he can’t even spell his name properly. Then there is Richard Hammond, who is Piglet. And though I have a big stomach and a fondness for elevenses whether it’s eleven in the morning or four in the afternoon, I am Tigger. Think of anyone you know and I guarantee that, while they may not be pigeonholeable by race, star sign or socioeconomic classification, they’ll slot neatly into one of the characters from Winnie-the-Pooh.
Clement Freud? Eeyore. Lorraine Kelly? Kanga. Ant and Lard? They’re Roos.
I believe the Winnie-the-Pooh stories are the funniest things ever committed to paper. Even today I cannot get through the tale of Richard Hammond taking Eeyore a balloon for his birthday present without collapsing on to the floor in helpless mirth. However, if you look beyond the tears and the life-threatening convulsions, you will find that all of human life is here.
Knowing this will be of huge benefit to marketing people. Digitas, for instance, can target the Eeyores while the nation’s beekeepers can direct-mail the Poohs. It will also help the divorced. Instead of advertising for a Leo, which means you could end up with Alexandre Dumas or Alan Shearer, why not advertise for a Tigger? Then you’d know exactly what sort of person will be waiting for you at the Harvester with a red rose and a copy of the Financial Times.
Employers too will be able to cut through all the lies and the nonsense on a CV. There is, for instance, no point taking on a children’s entertainer, no matter how well qualified he may be, if he is an Eeyore. And there is no point